Crayola Marker
by glittergoddess13
Summary: Weechesters! Each year, she traps Dean. A little bro, pebbles, & markers are the only weapons against the annual sacrifice, but will it be enough to heal, or simply break him. Who you are, who you want to be, and who you become wrapped in an moment.


Translucent kaleidoscope colors muddled, randomly swirling in the gutter spout rush from the motel's overhand. At the metallic pouring source, Sam ripped open marker encasings and dug away the sealing plastic before he plunged the ink-drenched felt amid the colorful pallet he had already sent into the building's waterfall. In turn, each faded, dribbling out until they were nothing more than humdrum faded in the discarded rainwater.

"Oh, God, not today." Dean rubbed the temples of his forehead as he stood dead center on the gravel, but mostly mud, road. "Can you just behave for once? Just right now."

An excited hand dipped in the purple one, washing the fabric insides to white. "The go away too fast!"

"I won't get you anymore if you keep tearing them up."

"It's cool." Sam said on the brink of some discovery. "It works--"

"Not everything works the way you want it. Believe me, I know."

"The markers did!"

"Whatever. Go back to your toys."

"No fair!"

Dean remained silent. After all, why should he bother to explain unfairness, when they simply lived it? On today of all days, fair didn't begin to cover it.

**_"That's not right, Dean. You shouldn't be mean to him." _**

Her voice sprang on him when he wasn't paying attention. He caught a smattering of her scent. Off guard with Sam's dribbling, she had drawn closer now, but she wasn't here yet. Clumsily, he let his guard down, drawing her to him. He clenched his lips to say nothing more unless she comes for him another year. If he just kept everything shut, she wouldn't—couldn't—reach him. Every year, it was the same, but he wasn't going to let it happen now. If he spoke too loud or mentioned her name, she'd find him. But, damn it all, he wanted her.

"They are not toys!" Sam bellowed from beneath the motel overhang cover, holding up a decorated rock.

"You're such a baby."

"You're not that much older than me."

Without looking, the eldest boy, barely ten himself, already knew the young one jutted out a defiant tongue. How a kid could find pleasure in recreating historic scenes with pet rocks was beyond Dean. In truth, he would have told the hippy teacher to "get bent", but not Sam. The kid spent all day, marker in hand, recreating Washington on the Delaware with google eyes, markers, and pebbles. Historic pet rocks became dangerous, not to mention annoying, in the hands of a first-grade brother.

"This one's George!"

"Dumbass." Without bothering to mutter under his breath, he managed to simultaneously deflect the need for her and correct his little brother. That small victory on his shoulder fortified him to show a winning glance, but the sight of the contented child opened his ears to her voice. Three markers jutted out of his little brother's pocket, one stuck out behind an ear, and two in each grubby, line-covered hand. Everything about Sam screamed to her—about her. Frivolous joy baited her like nothing else.

**_"Sweet baby."_**

"What?" Sam waited expectantly for a scolding without Dean's response. "You wanna—wanna play?"

"No." Restless, Dean moved his leg, tracing a jutted ridge in the mud. He wished he could again find pleasure in an ink-filled tube or even a good set of wiggly eyes, but his world was beyond those things. Six years on this very date, she built a trap for him, and he fell for it every year. At first, he wanted to believe she didn't mean to do it, but to carry on the burden this long had to be a sign she enjoyed making him cry.

"It's here again," Sam said knowingly. "You don't want to tell me, right?"

In that instant, Dean felt trapped by boy's presence and feared the scrutiny. He was once like Sam, back in some distant time so far away it might have never existed. No matter the time or space, that world did exist and it belonged to only him and her. He carried the door to his own vicious, craving secret. No one else would ever get in. This door was his, and Mary, his mother, waited on the other side.

**_"Go ahead, honey. Play with Sam."_** Mary said as if her spirit whispered inside his ear. Whether he wanted to hear or not, her voice rumbled deep inside, loving him and hurting him with welcomed punishment. **_"Let's play tag. You can never beat me!"_**

"Tell me about her."

"Who are you talking about?" Dean's lies were as soggy as the Sam's used up crayolas.

Eying his brother curiously, the six-year-old child waved a marker in his hand. With a final movement, a bright blue streak appeared on Sam from cheek to chin. "Mom. I heard Dad last night. He said he wasn't helping you and Mom today?"

"Today is nothing." Digging into the still fresh Impala tire impressions, Dean lowered his gaze to the last trace of his father's presence here. He traced the lines with a boot tip as the softened mud caved in, crumbling in a squishy mess beneath his shoe tread until it stole the only remains of his father. The impatient foot sloshed to fill the universe with his own noise. Anything, but listening to the memories of a mother who isn't there.

**_"John never listens. Tell him. Tell Sam,"_** She demanded.

That was all it took for his mother's and brother's voices to crack the imaginary door into Dean's pain. Unwittingly, Dean opened his mouth, making a mewling sound at first that turned into a single word. "Sam?"

"Huh?"

"Forget it," Dean whispered. "Nothing."

He kicked at in another track, filling the ridges with the snaking water feed by Sam's overhead gutter system until his shoe soaked. Jamming a foot down, his sneaker socked in ankle deep in the mud. A great suction sound slobbered at his heel when he extracted the encrusted shoe. Leaping away, he joined Sam under the motel's outcropping, staring out at the sodden, untamed weeds and wildflowers. Rain drenched incense filled his nostril with thoughts of how she would love the clumsy fiasco of today-- the already gone rain, the pebbles, the markers. She would have loved it all. Maybe that was why she couldn't leave him alone in the pounding door of his heart.

Crouched on the cement walkway, Sam clattered pebbles together. A tiny fist fluttered color over a rock, speeding over the flat surface in an ugly mix of scribbles. "I don't think I like her."

The statement, catching Dean by utter surprise, tripped him up mentally and physically until he slipped on his mud slick shoe and only found balance by leaning against the motel door. "Don't be a brat and say that crap!" A hint of wariness filled his scream. There had to be an escape from all of this, and he fumbled several steps before he realized he had nowhere else to go. Who else would take him? There was no longer a real home. "Stop it! You don't know anything. I can't do what she wants."

"Was Mom even real?" Sam asked, tentatively placing a hand on Dean's ankle, finding a slight tremble under his fingertip.

"I'm not thinking about her! Go away." The older boy clenched his fist as if punching the topic closed, but only managed to stare at Sam as a stranger. Accustomed and trained lies danced off his tongue, rolling slick and as meaningless as a barren seed. Lies were better than the truth. He had to believe that or else this life meant nothing.

**_"Not your fault."_**

"Yes, it is." Dean answered to the thoughts of her inside his mind.

"What is?" Sam puzzled.

**_"Let it go."_**

"I can't."

The truth: At four-years-old evil murdered his mother to leave a gaping hole soul in her place. Though gone, he turned for her, wanted her to grab the last kernel of popcorn, to cut his grilled cheese into the shape of a dinosaur, and to squash bugs on the wall. She promised happily-ever-after, but she lied about that every night. There was no such thing as happy.

Mary followed him everywhere. The illusion savior, who left him, gnawed at his spirit every single day. She cried for him in the rain, winked at him in spider webs, tucked him in at night with a sky matching the depth of her eyes, and woke him at sunrise streaks of her blond hairs hiding in the rays. Her spectrum echoed on the land as if everything wanted him to remember her. All the silly things, she loved about the world stabbed at him whenever he let them. He could live with that daily pain, find a way to grow hard and deflect it, but that barrier was useless on this day.

Today, the anniversary of her death, black holed the world colorless of her sparkle, leaving only the faded memory of her death. Only now, does her voice plead, but it's not to be saved. She spoke of nonsense things and giggles. He was powerless to deny her for too long.

**_"Smile for me. You always made me happy when you smiled."_**

He breathed just to hear the wheeze of the too thick breath of the suffocation emotions. When he tried to recall the last time he felt happiness, his stomach pitched in waves of nausea. The bitter salt of that unsealed wound trapped him in indescribable grief. Once again, his drowned, bloodstained soul was her prisoner.

"You're scaring me." Sam barely grasped the lines on his brother's face, but the pain, confusion, and terror in the elder son's eyes caused the young one to shiver.

**_"Sam loves you. Why don't you help me make his lunch?"_**

"It's nothing. I'm just not feeling well." Dean shook Sam's grip from his leg. The contact, uncomfortable to begin with, crept upon too much of how she would break him. Before he got in deeper or said too much, he reacted. Searching inside his jacket, the method already decided, he retrieved one of John's flasks, which always made his father happier—better. Right now, he needed to be better.

"Dad'll kill you!"

**_"I'm watching you, young man, if you even think about—."_**

"How would he know unless you tattle? And he wouldn't care. He doesn't care."

"Yes, he does."

"You don't understand."

"You miss her."

"I don't. She was nothing but a pain in the ass like you, and I don't miss her."

"Then, I don't miss her either."

Betrayed by Sam's words, Dean threw back a hefty guzzle, too large and too strong for his untested throat. He sputtered the sienna liquid like a geyser until a rolling swerved in his still too damn clear head. He readied to scream at Sam, the inspecting brat, to make him go away, but his little brother was far from finished.

"I kinda hate her." Sam said so effortlessly.

The hate flood destroyed his inner defenses. The lies he told himself—told others collapsed into true feelings. Above all, he wanted Sam to shut up. "Stop saying that! She loved—" He blinked back a angry tears to remind himself he was trained to be strong—to take anything the world did to him. He must be strong. That's what was expected of a Winchester.

"I hate her! I hate her ! I hate her!" Sam screamed, jumping up to glare in Dean's face. "I hate her!"

* * *

_**Author's note: More to come to this short one. Sorry that I had to be a bit vague with the summary. I didn't want to give up the premise of the story in the short description. Plus, its fun to see the boys fight, torture themselves, fight, and then make up anyway. I hope you enjoy, so now off to write the other thing rumbling in my head. **_


End file.
